Chick checking in Okarito forest

Posted November 30, 2012

These birds live relatively close together, although they still have their own territories so keep their distance from each other!

With the help of Skyranger, we were waiting for these birds to finish incubating an egg each and were hopeful they would both have a chick hatched and well in the burrow with them. Rowi incubate one egg for around 75 days before it hatches out to a miniature rowi – all ready to eat invertebrates and worms and look after itself.

First, we went to visit Timone and her mate. We got a signal for their transmitter, which is attached to her leg. In this way we can find her no matter which burrow she may be sleeping in for the day.

After carefully crawling around the log trying to find the entrance, I saw a large hole that disappeared into the log. On closer inspection there were a few kiwi feathers so I quietly shone my torch in to see if I could view the birds. Timone and her mate were both sitting inside the entrance, however I could not see a chick or any egg.

Next we headed back along the track to get a signal for Rupert and his girlfriend, hoping that this visit would be more successful.

Again we tracked in quietly and as we got close I whispered to Fiona to be as quiet as possible. We were just about to start walking up closer to a large log as there was a loud crashing and the female ran past us as we stood quietly looking on! She must have been sitting at the entrance and heard us coming….we quickly moved up to the now obvious burrow entrance and I knelt down to check inside.

Our beautiful, wild rowi chick.

The male was still sitting quietly with a very furry, very small chick beside him!

I reached inside and gently pulled the chick out so that Fiona and I could weigh him and attach a miniature transmitter to his leg. He was a perfect, gorgeous chick, we both felt very excited and priviledged to have seen him in the wild with his parents!